


Coup de Foudre

by angelwarm



Category: One Direction (Band)
Genre: Blizzards & Snowstorms, Harry reads a lot, Harry works in a diner, Louis' rough n tumble, Love at First Sight, M/M, So many dialects, Southern AU, Storms, They don't inhabit the real world, They're dreamers, Thunderstorms, Topeka KS, Unsafe Sex
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-04-29
Updated: 2015-04-29
Packaged: 2018-03-26 07:12:25
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 15,038
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3841840
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/angelwarm/pseuds/angelwarm
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Harry moves to the front door accompanied by insistent lightning flashes. He acknowledges it could also be a murderer on the other side and that he will likely be dead in five minutes.</p><p>It should stop him. It doesn’t. </p><p>Harry decides not to waste another second and calls through to the other side, “Just a second.” He turns the key in the latch and opens it and—everything around him drops away in one long cloud coming into another cloud.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Coup de Foudre

**Author's Note:**

  * For [shoutodoroki](https://archiveofourown.org/users/shoutodoroki/gifts).



> thank you for such great prompts. i know i took this one down a different path than a simple "louis shows up shivering on harry's doorstep," but i hope it does something for you
> 
> they are much wilder versions of themselves than i originally believed they would be
> 
> playlist i listened to:
> 
> el manana - gorillaz  
> bullfighter jacket - miniature tigers  
> west coast - lana del rey  
> don't forget me - red hot chili peppers  
> venus in furs - velvet underground  
> wires - the neighborhood  
> cool - tigers jaw  
> pumped up kicks - foster the people  
> lithium - nirvana  
> doll parts - hole  
> otherside - red hot chili peppers  
> salad days - mac demarco  
> she only loves me when im there - ball park music  
> 67 - mellowhype  
> hoarse - earl sweatshirt  
> this last year - palms

* * *

 

 

 

_The story exists even when there are no witnesses,_

_kissers, tellers. Because secrets secrete,_

_and these versions tend to be slapstick, as if in a candy_

_factory the chocolate belted down the conveyor too fast_

_or everyone turned sideways at the same time by accident._

_This little tale tries so hard to be humorous,_

_wants so badly to win affection and to lodge._

_Because nothing is truly forgotten and loved._

 

 

― Brenda Shaughnessy, Take 6 of “One Love Story, Eight Takes,” Human Dark with Sugar ( Copper Canyon Press, 2008)

 

 

 

* * *

 

 

 

 

 

 

Topeka is a fresh sleep.

Last spring, there was an F-4 tornado. Harry dug his neighbors out of a pile of wood and gold dust. Harry himself lost Jane, for days, until her lithe black body wandered back to the front door of their one-level house.

Spring comes with her very gentle hands and Harry loves the flowerbeds. Cut-grass and lawnmower fuel. Even better when the sprinklers start up and Harry can walk barefoot between yards, the small grass wisps sticking to his ankles.

But sometimes spring has a violent mouth and she and Topeka don’t get on. When they don’t get on there’s tornadoes and lots of debris and forty-three people die. Harry often confuses debris and hubris but figures maybe hubris is a type of debris.

He hasn’t seen a storm yet wipe out where he lives but he’s walked to neighboring towns on long Sundays and seen it there.

Harry once stood in front of a stone plot that used to be a house and stared and stared. The difference between their houses was two miles. He stared for maybe thirty minutes and tried to build the house up from scratch. Then his eyes hurt and Jane didn’t like how the air was a magnet so they went home.

They’ve been lucky. Topeka is vulnerable. Every year there’s substantial damage and death tolls. The city raises money and the city gets donations and Harry helps the city in periods of strained construction. But spring is still stubborn and Topeka is still insecure.

So when the sky is fixed with a strange trembling as it is today and many days in May, Harry fiddles with his cross.

Angela taps him on the shoulder. “Looks bad, doesn’t it?”

“Not bad.” Harry picks at one of the tattoos that completely cover his arm. A flower vine. “But it could be.”

“I just don’t know how to tell anymore.” Angela tuts.

Her eyes are big blackberries set deep in her face. With dark hair dark eyebrows she looks like the kind of storm clouds that come in around this time of year. Those are Harry’s favorite. They’re electric just like she is.

She wipes down the surface of the counter with a yellow dish rag. “Every damn day feels like the last. It’s a hell of a way to live.”

Harry smiles at her. “You don’t have to live that way.”

“Sure I don’t, kid.” Harry’s never told Angela or Ray that he loves being called kid but they seem to know this anyways. “But you can’t pass one day without tellin’ people you love that you lov’em. That’ll be the day you regret it.”

“Hm,” Harry hums. His tongue runs along his lip.

Angela hired Harry for his pink smile but Harry has a theory that her and Ray are protective of other town misfits and want to make safe spaces for them.

There’s another girl Harry usually works with named Addy. She’s half-Nigerian half-Puerto-Rican. He likes everything she says and he likes listening to her and Angela flow between English and Spanish like creek water.

“It’s different for you,” she dumps the rag in a gray bin with the rest of the rags. “You don’t got anyone you love livin’ here. Not yet, anyways. No offense.”

She hands him the bin which means _Take this to the kitchen._

“No offense taken,” he nods.

He walks into the back kitchen and dumps the rags in the sink. Ray is frying onions in a pan and also chopping them. He tilts his head to Harry which means _Hey_ and also _I love you_ but they’ve never said it out loud so Harry doesn’t always know that for sure.

Ray has long white hair that’s tied with a rubber band and loped through the back of a baseball cap. His skin is pearly tan except for a large scar that goes down the length of his arm and peeks out of long-sleeves. He’s a Potawatomi Native American from Oklahoma and he walks like the world rotates. Sure of itself and its place. _Bodéwadmi_ , Harry remembers, _those who keep the hearth-fire._

Harry washes the rags while Ray hums over the steam and tacky chlorine smell. “Edebanayan ngom. Edebanayan ngom. Edebanayan, Edebanayan.”

“I like that one.”

“Éhé.” 

Then they work in silence. The _chp-chp-chp_ of Ray’s knife and the hush of the water hitting Harry’s hands, making them red and splotchy.

“S’been a quiet day today,” Harry murmurs.

“For now,” Ray offers. His accent sits heavy on his chest and he sounds perpetually like he has a cold. “Saw them clouds driving out here this mornin’.”

“I saw them too,” he agrees, “they do look weird. Just weird though, not weird-weird.”

“Mhm,” Ray dumps the onions in the sweet oil. “Shpemek. Something odd in the air.”

“Could just be a regular storm too.”

“Could be.”

“Well,” Harry wrings the rags free of green soapy water. “Storm or not I’ll still be clocking out of here at eight.”

Ray _ding-ding-dings_ the silver bell and puts the sideplate of caramelized onions through the mail slit. This used to be a mail office. Harry’s not sure where the office is now but he is sure that the diner is more important for the town than mail.

Harry dries his hands on a paper towel and spins around to lean against the sink and look at Ray.

Ray’s eyes are small popcorn kernels because his eyebrows are overgrown.

It’s a good thing because it keeps his morale high and little kids like to pull on them with their small chubby hands. Harry loves children and also being a bit of an outsider and so does Ray. They both share a lot of love which is the best way to be close to someone.

“So, kid,” Ray wipes his hands on a fresh towel, “you gon’ get out tonight maybe? Meet some people?”

Harry furrows his eyebrows. “I meet lotsa people working here.”

“Okay,” Ray agrees. “As long as you’re happy.”

“I hate when you do that,” Harry mutters. He turns very petulant because Harry doesn’t have a dad and Ray sometimes acts like his dad and since Harry is twenty, he figures they have a lot of catching up to do with the teenage angst years he missed out on.

“Well I don’t like when you talk like that,” Ray smiles. “Hush up. Just feel like all I ever see you do nowadays is work. You didn’t come here fer that, did ya?”

“If I never worked, you’d never see me.” Harry sticks a tongue between his teeth. Out of habit he reaches up and pulls on his cross.

“Sure, kid.” Ray grabs hold of three modest green peppers. He has hands like a beanstalk giant. “Really I could do with seein’ you less.”

“That’s mean.”

“Gotta be mean sometimes.”

“I like it here,” Harry says, small.

“Course you do,” Ray resumes chopping. “It’s a lovely little town. Lots of excitement when the storms come ‘round. Keeps you young.”

“Angela doesn’t seem to think so.” Harry stands off the sink.

“She’s old.” Ray smiles. His eyes are lit up in the blue way which is when Harry knows he’s thinking something nice about Angela. “Plenty wise. Also plenty bitter. Let her stew, she likes it when people pay attention to her.”

“I can tell. I would bestow upon her all the best affections.” Harry grins.

Ray quirks a pleasant eyebrow. “What’re we into this week?”

“Nothing new,” Harry admits. “Shakespeare’s sonnets.”

“Angie liked the ones you brought ‘round yesterday.”

“She’s my favorite person.” Harry dimples. “Next to you, of course.”

Ray mimics him under his breath yet still is smiling. “Tell her if no customers come in for the next hour I’m gonna get on myself.” Ray gestures to the door with the knife.

“Aye-aye, captain,” Harry salutes him. Then he’s out the door again and back in the big window-filled room where the color is a bit darker than when he last looked.

He peers outside, curious. The sky is almost completely covered with thick clouds in a series of girthy grey thumbprints. They billow up high into the skyline.

“Lordy lord.” Angela whistles. “I do love watchin’ a storm build.” They stand very silent and observe how the clouds mesh together. After another five minutes the sky again shifts and dips into a mild pink.

“I love how it looks,” Harry whispers like he has to.

“Yeah. All the light in it.”

Harry turns to her. “All the light _tryna_ get in it. Look,” he points out a higher spot in the cloud where it’s a light pink-orange and dust, “see that?” Angela nods vague beside him. “The sunlight wants to get to the ground but the clouds are too thick.”

“So what happens then?”

“It stays in the clouds.”

“Oh.”

“It’s kinda sad.”

Angela turns into his shoulder and pats his face that still carries traces of childhood. “Boy, you’re gettin’ so smart.”

Her eyes are shiny and Harry almost gets shiny too. Angela is about to point it out but he’s quicker and he pokes her cheek. She has dimples like his and he sometimes pretends they’re related by blood.

“Never gonna be as smart as you.”

“Due time, baby.”

Harry plants a hand on his hip and looks back out at the sky again. “You think that’s why no one’s come around today?”

“No,” Angela folds her arms across her chest and hides her mouth in her hand. “Think it’s jus’ the strangest day.”

“Yeah.” Harry stares at the leaves outside. How they move in a murmur. “It is kinda strange.”

“Ray tell you ‘bout that big dance tonight?”

“I didn’t let’im tell me. Thought that counts?”

“Hm,” Angela turns away from the window. She switches on the TV and Harry is satisfied with the familiar twang of Michael Filibuster on the local news.

“Amo Michael Light Bulb Filament,” Angela says.

“I thought his name was Filibuster.”

“Dunno.” She considers. “Don’t really think it’s either. Maybe Mike Feather-duster.” Harry lets out a tinny laughter and it stays high in the ceiling of the room. “Speakin’ of filibuster,” Angela continues, “you should think about gettin’ to the dance tonight.”

“Maybe.”

“Harry.” He can hear her accent slip in at the end and he knows a good groveling will take him a long way. Angela is very sweet on him because she likes to be sweet on people and two years ago when Harry showed up at her door with nothing it seemed to work out for the both of them.

“Angie,” Harry grins at her with a lot of sugar. “Me amas…”

“Nuh-uh.” She smiles.

“Síííí,” Harry drags out.

“Eres un idiota.”

“Sí…pero me amas.”

“Fine.” Angela purses her lips. “Vienes aquí.” Harry ducks his head down so she can whisper in his ear. “Te amo.”

Harry beams. “Thanks. Yo también. You know.”

“Yes. I know.”

“Oh.” Harry remembers, “Ray said he’s gonna leave if no one else comes in.”

“En serio? So dramatic.” She breezes past him saying “it’s not even past five” and disappears into the kitchen where he can hear the two of them dig into each other.

Harry likes to be here with them and the other waiters and busboys because they all have a history they carry very close to their hearts. He doesn’t know what it’s like to have a history worth protecting and sometimes it tightens around his teeth when he sees them dance or throw their head back on a laugh.

A couple comes into view just by the door, so he calls “customer” and slaps a rag over his shoulder. This is his signature look.

The girl is sweet-faced like an apple and dressed plain. Her eyes are busy, tumbleweed color. The boy much of the same but he also has a lip piercing and Harry welcomes the sight.

“Welcome to Bradley’s,” Harry smiles. He takes in their features. The boy with the nose a bit too large for his face and the girl with big rotten eyes. “Wanna sit up at the counter or can I get you two a table?”

Angela knocks through the swinging door. “They’re takin’ the counter, Harry!”

“What? So you can read their palms and tell them love is doomed?”

Angela frowns and smacks his ass with her rag. Harry yelps. “Don’t sass me in front of customers. Just ‘cause you’re my niño don’t make it alright to get smart with me.”

He smiles. “Yes ma’am.”

“We’ll take the counter,” the girl says, clearly amused at the interaction.

“Sure thing.” She hands them two menus.

The boy asks her, “Can you really read palms, ma’am?”

“Absolutely,” she grins. “But y’all seem sweet so I’ll spare you the details on yers.” She seats them towards the end of the counter, just in front of the waffle iron. Angela has a knack for guessing what new customers like, and she’s pouring batter in the iron before Harry can even blink.

Harry cocks an eyebrow. “You love breaking up young couples.”

“Not today,” she pats his shoulder. “They’ll work it out in a few weeks for themselves.”

Harry stares at the side of her face and watches her tanned hands at work. “How do you always know this stuff?”

Angela exhales out a mild displeasure. “You ask me that every once in a while and I always tell you the same thing. I just do.”

“You never got around to reading my palm,” Harry huffs. He crosses his arms.

“That’s ‘cause you’re an open book, niño, I don’t even have to. Why don’t you head home for today?”

“But,” Harry frowns, “I always close on Fridays. That’s—”

“My rule, yes, I know.” She reaches behind him to untie his apron. “Blame it on my nerves. I want you home safe before that storm starts, that’s all.”

“And what about you?”

“I’ll be jus’ fine. You on the other hand,” she laughs. “You’d be blown over by a gentle breeze. I’d have to call a search on your head.”

“I appreciate your confidence in me.” Harry shrugs the rag off his shoulder.

“Well,” Angela winks at him. “Storms can bring some real strange things in on their backs.”

“Right.” Always the cryptic sentence. Harry rolls his eyes against it, playful. “Take care of yerself, okay?”

“Sure thing, honey. Now go on. Be safe. Brush yer teeth.”

“Thanks, ma.”

Harry calls a quick goodbye to Ray and gathers up his schoolbag from beneath the counter.

It’s almost seven in the evening and he knows Jane’s likely getting antsy with the approaching storm. When he walks out the back entrance the air is still. The clouds are full of the sun’s pink yolky light.

He likes living in Topeka because it’s flat and there’s so much sky. When they get a real clear starry night there’s a feeling that the molecules have stopped moving and he’s inhabiting some other place for a while.

Harry licks his finger and holds it up to the wind even though there’s no wind. He just likes doing it and smiles to himself.

There’s a rumble of thunder. Jove maybe having a laugh about him. He starts the walk from the town center to his house about a mile outside.

 

 

 

★

 

 

 

When he reaches his house, rain has started to tap lightly on his scalp and catch on odd corners of exposed skin. He can hear Jane scratching at the door which is darling especially when combined with her whimpers. She’s very needy and Harry likes to be needed. He turns his key.

“Hiiiii! Hiii,” he laughs and is met with an armful of her skinny strong legs.

Jane’s a black lab with a body bound together by affectionate bones. Harry locks the door behind him. “Let’s see if you’ve done what I think you’ve done.”

He leaves the key in the lock pad and walks into the kitchen which is small with walls blue-tiled. There’s a lot of copper because it’s Kansas and his elderly neighbor makes a lot of copper roosters and Harry is only human. He can’t resist a good copper rooster. Or twelve.

A bag of dog chow, as expected, has been knocked over onto the floor.

“You know, I have to confess,” Harry kneels down to scratch at her ears, her eyes black beetle shells, “I almost leave it out on purpose now. Just to see if you do it to spite me.”

She whimpers into a small bark which means something like _I can’t help it you’re so stupid and you love me so much_ and also likely means _I love you so much I just want your attention_. Harry bets on both of those with his life.

About an hour after Harry’s managed to relocate the bag somewhere safer and clean the floors with Jane’s help (she just ate most of it and then had a nap) he’s sitting at the small counter space in the kitchen. Jane is licking the floor because she likes cleaning solvent.

A light eye dropper of rain starts. Small patters like nails on the roof.

Harry is reading the Odyssey for the third time and attempting to memorize it. He thinks it would be nice to memorize a mythology.

That first crack of lightning comes not ten minutes after the tiny rain pattering. Jane whimpers very small. Harry nudges her with his big toe and scratches down her back, even though she has some concept that he’s using his toe and is a bit repulsed by it.

“All good, girl.” Harry murmurs. “Want me to read to you?” She allows a silvery whine which means _Please._

Sometimes she feels very human to Harry.

“We’ll start from Book One,” Harry assures. “I don’t mind.”

By the time Harry’s turning onto Book Five, Jane is undoubtedly asleep. She snores like a middle-aged man with a beer gut. Actually she snores like Angela who snores like a middle-aged man with a beer gut.

It swirls black and blue outside. Harry wants to go out in the rain and see the lightning but there hasn’t been too many big bad ones that startle.

Harry’s voice is at the current status of gravel in a blender but he knows if he stops reading while the storm is this bad that Jane will wake back up and give him a hard time.

He looks out of the kitchen to the big window in the living room. Lightning whips across the sky like an eager hand. He looks back to the poem and continues.

“When he had thus spoken, he said to his son Mercury, ‘Mercury, you are our messenger, go therefore and tell Calypso we have decreed that poor Ulysses is to return home…

They will send him in a ship to his own country, and will give him more bronze and gold and raiment than he would have brought back from Troy, if he had had all his prize money and had got home without disaster…He shall return to his country and his friends.’ Thus he spoke, and Mercury, guide and guardian, slayer of Argus, did as he was told.”

Harry pauses. “Imagine killing someone once and that’s just, like, part of your title ever since.”

Jane doesn’t indulge his thought. Harry tests it out for himself, “Harry, accidental slayer of the unfortunate cockroach that inhabited the shower drain.”

He reads, “Forthwith he bound on his glittering golden sandals with which he could fly like the wind over land and sea. He took the wand with which he seals men's eyes in sleep or wakes them just as he pleases, and flew holding it in his hand over Pieria…”

Thunder jolts him and his heart stutters along with the lights. Jane’s collar bell shakes as she lifts her head from sleep. “Poor girl,” Harry coos. His big toe scratches her again and she accepts this as the available comfort.

Harry calms down after another moment and continues. “He flew and flew over many a weary wave, but when at last he got to the island which was his journey's end, he left the sea and went on by land till he came to the cave where the nymph Calypso lived.

He found her at home—”

The lights cut. Harry exhales a quiet “okay.” He shuts the book and steps off the chair.

He nudges Jane. “Looks like the power’s out. Guess what happens now?” She looks up at him always patient. “We’re gonna light some candles.” Harry makes the pitch of his voice higher. “We’re gonna have a candlelit date! You and me!”

She gets successfully riled up and trots in front of him to win the race to the living room. Harry tells her she did indeed win and swipes the candle off the table. It still sounds peculiar outside—the unstable thunder buzzing the ground at his feet and the rain harsh at the windows.

Harry pads back into the kitchen and lights the giant vanilla candle. It smells like his first mom in the line of mom’s.

She used a vanilla hand lotion so when she’d tuck Harry into bed at night it always lingered right where she’d folded the blanket and it helped him sleep. That’s all he remembers.

Usually he remembers people’s eyes but in his dreams they’re just buttons. He’s sure that came from _Coraline._

Folded back up in his chair and Jane sleepy and quiet on the living room couch, Harry re-opens the book and attempts to find his place. Right. “He left the sea and went on by land till he came to the cave where the nymph Calypso lived. He found her at home.”

The doorbell rings.

Harry pauses.

The doorbell rings again.

He rationalizes the situation quickly. Could just be the neighbors. Could be he left something back at the diner and Angela drove all the way over. _Not in this weather, idiota_. Well it could still definitely just be the elderly neighbors. They get spooked by storm-fronts easily.

Harry moves to the front door accompanied by insistent lightning flashes. He acknowledges it could also be a murderer on the other side and that he will likely be dead in five minutes.

It should stop him. It doesn’t.

His feet hit the mat by the door and his fingers are at the key before he can really question it. Something is pulling him.

There’s a soft desperate series of knocks on the wood. Must be the Something.

Harry decides not to waste another second and calls through to the other side, “Just a second.” He turns the key in the latch and opens it and—everything around him drops away in one long cloud coming into another cloud.

In front of him is a wiry-framed, tan boy. He’s all shivers and bones and his hands are in fists at his side. He has a star tattoo at the corner of his right eye and this is as far as Harry can get before everything comes back to him hard and hot. Like lightning.

His eyes. Very black and blue. Harry’s spine locks.

“He-llo,” the boy smirks. “I need a place to stay tonight. Yers is the first fuckin’ house on this road that actually opened the goddamn door!”

Harry glances down at the boy’s feet. No golden sandals. He’s barefoot.

“What happened to your shoes?”

The boy straightens. “Life happened to ‘em. You gonna let me in or what?”

Harry startles. “Yeah,” he finds himself saying. “Come in.”

“Thank fuck,” the boy gasps. He’s trembling violently. Harry closes the door as quietly as he can, the storm too loud and out of place between them.

“Take your clothes off,” Harry instructs.

The boy stills. “Uh—.”

“You’ll catch cold,” Harry recovers. “Not—not like that. Take them off and just leave them by the door, okay? I’ll get you a towel.”

“Okay.”

“Right,” Harry swallows. “Be right back.”

Harry opens the hall closet and takes out two large white towels. Jane pads right past his feet, curious about the commotion at last. He follows her back towards the front door, where the boy is now standing in his pants.

“Here,” Harry hands him the towels, trying not to eye the tattoo-covered chest but he fails when the boy says, “Thanks. Got any?”

Harry can hear the chatter to his teeth, the tuft of breath that breaks over the boy’s mouth.

“Yeah,” Harry nods. Jane walks back into the living room, disinterested. The boy pulls the towel over his small shoulders, swallowed by the white, his skin golden against it. “I’ve got plenty.” Harry rolls up his shirt sleeves and holds them out to the boy for inspection.

“Dope.” The boy smiles.

They stand looking at each other.

Harry feels the boy’s hands on his skin which makes little sense since the boy hasn’t touched him and isn’t looking at him either. Sometimes eyes can be heavy like hands.

Humidity has gathered in the room and makes their skin dewey. Harry expects a thunder clap to send their bodies falling together. This could be another mythology where the world floods just from them touching each other.

He tries to get his thoughts together and be level-headed but the air smells like pennies and the sight of the boy across from him has only persisted in curling hot around his gut.

“Not tryna be rude,” the boy interrupts, “but do you got a change of clothes I could swipe?”

Harry doesn’t know why he says it. “Can I get your name first?”

“Boo,” the boy grins.

Harry stands very still and soft. “I’m terrified.”

“That’s my name.” Boo clarifies. “Well, what people call me, anyways.”

“Aren’t they the same thing?”

“Nope. Two completely different things.”

“Alright,” Harry nods. “I’m Harry. Just Harry.”

“Boring as bricks,” Boo teases. He holds his hand out to shake and the rain knocks on the walls which means _Take it_. “Nice ta meet ya, Harry. Thanks for the towels. And the roof.”

Harry takes his hand and finds it like leather, his palm full of callouses. Men around here often have these kinds of hands. Men that build or men that burn.

“Nice to meet you. I’ll—I’ll just get you some clothes.”

Harry walks to the end of the hallway and takes a right into the bedroom usually kept shut to avoid any of Jane’s potential accidents. His blinds are open and he can see messy streaks of rain down the window. He grabs a pair of sweatpants, socks, and a black t-shirt. Then he decides on a white t-shirt instead.

He walks back to find Boo admiring a piece of art on the wall. It’s a painting of a rocking horse. It reminded Harry of _The Rocking Horse Winner_ when he was at the fair last summer.

“Here you go.”

“Thanks.” Boo slips the t-shirt over his head. Harry finally allows himself to look at the blunt line of Boo’s hipbones and the rings of his ribs that poke through.

He catalogs each tattoo. _Dagger forearm Skull bicep It Is What It Is on his chest then the eye Star_. The star by the eye is the most interesting but Harry doesn’t know how to ask about it.

“They’re a bit big, sorry.”

Boo laughs. “It’s cool. Yer bigger than me. Healthy. Nothin’ wrong with that.” His cheekbones cut into his face and Harry is sure in a past life he was a wolf or is a wolf right now and just using a human form to avoid scaring Harry.

“The socks are really nice,” Harry says. It’s lost in the din of the storm.

Boo doesn’t respond. He drags the sweatpants over his legs and Harry stares.

He hasn’t touched or been touched in a long time and Boo’s skin might as well be a siren song. Harry can see the outline of his cock in his underwear. Boo peers up at him when he snaps the waistband. “You make it a habit of watchin’ people while they dress?”

Harry smacks a hand over his eyes. “Sorry. Fuck. Wow, sorry.”

He feels fingers peel the hand off his face. Boo is close to his body and his canines peek out over his bottom lip just enough. “You gotta relax,” Boo says. “I liked it anyways.”

“What?” Harry is cold and the implication is frightening. His preferences are need-to-know basis and very few people need to know.

Then Boo steps back. The towel hangs dead over his shoulder. “Just bein’ honest. I know how you were lookin’ at me.” He holds up his hands, which are also small as he is small.

Harry tilts his head and feigns innocence. He doesn’t like to give himself away that quick if he can. “How was I looking at you?”

“Mm, you know.” Boo hands him back a towel. “Hungry.” He tries to turn the light switch on, his finger sliding over the flat white of it, and when nothing happens he lets out a small “huh.”

“The power’s out,” Harry informs him.

“Gathered that much.”

“You don’t seem familiar with the area.”

“Nice detective skills.” Boo brushes his hair across his forehead. It clumps together endearingly. “I’m just passin' through, let’s say.”

“Just passing through?”

“Yeah. Sorta like that.”

Harry looks at him and thinks how his face was made for the summertime.

It was always the fast falling for Harry and it’s no different when the boy in front of him meets his eye beneath very fine wires of eyelash. The boy who is very much a boy.

They stand in the humid room looking at each other.

“I’ve lit some candles,” is what Harry says next.

“Fuckin’ love candles.”

Harry turns on his heel and walks into the kitchen. Boo follows him.

 

 

 

★

 

 

 

Jane is still on the couch. She doesn’t take well to new people and Boo’s been in his kitchen for close to an hour now complaining about it.

“Don’t take it too personally,” Harry says. He’s glad he picked out the white t-shirt because the boy is Roman bronze in the candlelight. “Jane kinda hates strangers.”

“But I’m not a total stranger.” Louis sits in a chair at the counter. “We been introduced an’ everything.”

Harry is cold and grabs for a cooking pot on the shelf. “Like tea?”

“Any hot somethin’ is good right about now.”

“Cool.”

“You’ve got a lot of roosters.”

“My neighbor makes them.”

Boo whistles. “You’re somethin else. Buyin’ up them ugly roosters just to make an old lady happy. Lettin’ a dirty stranger into your house.”

Harry turns the dial on the stove. He hides in the clicks. “You weren’t dirty.”

“I might as well’ve crawled out a chimney.” Boo suddenly slaps a hand on the table. “So I’m not a stranger!”

“You’re not.”

“You’re—nice, Harry.”

“Well.” Harry reasons. “I know what it’s like to need a bit of kindness I guess.”

Thunder rolls into itself. Boo _hmm’s_ at the back of his throat. After the water is boiled and the tea bags are deposited into two mugs, Harry drags a chair to his side of the counter to face the boy.

He’s tracing a forefinger around where Harry’s tied the string. “That’s a neat trick.”

“Thanks. I work at a diner. I thought if you tied it ‘round the handle then you never have to worry about your tea bag getting stuck at the bottom.”

“You’ve got some knack fer detail,” Boo smiles.

Harry wraps his fingers around his mug and notices Boo noticing them. His hair is almost dry. It sticks up at the ends and curls like a bird wing. “What were you doing out there?”

Boo’s eyes flit up to Harry’s. “I went for a walk.”

“Cool. What’re you doing in Kansas?”

“I get the feelin’ you’re gonna keep askin’ questions.”

“Not because I’m suspicious of you!” Harry rushes. Then he sobers considerably. “I’m gonna say something weird. Then you answer the questions.”

“What if I don’t?”

“You will,” Harry smiles into his dimples. This is how he wins.

Boo returns his smile. “Confident, aren’t we? Alright.” He takes a large slurping sip from the tea. “Do yer worst.”

“I think you and I were supposed to meet tonight.”

Boo drops his eyes to the mug. “How do you figure?”

“I dunno,” Harry admits. “I just know stuff like that. I get a feeling.”

“I gotta say,” Boo levels him with a wariness, “I was hopin’ I wouldn’t be gettin’ murdered tonight but that didn’t make me feel too good.”

Harry snorts. “You don’t have to say that.”

“Well. What else would I say?”

“That you feel the same.”

They look at each other across the counter. Boo bites down on his bottom lip and cards it through his teeth. Harry watches and feels every second set into place something very big and very over their heads.

“First off,” Boo murmurs with a pink mouth, “I dunno how to answer that just yet.”

“I know it makes no sense.”

“You’re wrong,” the boy shakes his head. “Makes perfect sense. I’m gonna tell you my real name. We can start with that. Fair?”

Harry swallows. “You don’t have to.”

“I don’t know why I feel like I know ya,” Boo murmurs.

“I don’t either.”

“Yeah. Or trust ya. But,” the boy pauses, “I do, so. Louis.”

“Lou-is. Not Lewis? I like it.”

“Not Lewis. Thanks.” Louis pats his hand. “I like Harry.”

“Thanks.”

“I don’t live ‘round here.”

“So where do you live?”

“Nowhere right now. I was holed up with some heroin addicts. Real nice people. But sometimes,” Louis licks his lips. “Sometimes I get this feeling. Like a star’s in my chest. And then I just gotta go somewhere new.”

Harry nods. “Is that why you have that tattoo?”

Louis’ finger runs across the ink. “I always forget I have it. No, got it when I was a kid.”

“What’s it mean then?”

“Kids I hung ‘round with always used to say I was ‘starry-eyed.’ Y’know like, a dreamer kinda. So my friend Stan got hold of a sewing needle, some ink, voi-la.”

Harry touches it. “Looks good.”

“I had it run over again when I got some money. It was faded real bad.” Louis reaches and taps the outside of Harry’s wrist. Harry turns it over in his hand. “I like that.”

Louis’ fingers rest on the word “play.” Harry smiles sweet and private. “That was the first one I ever got.”

“What’s it mean?”

Harry looks at him, blank. “It’s a verb. Command form.”

Louis places a shy hand over his lips but laughter spills out between the spaces of his fingers. Harry laughs with him and the rain disappears and so does the ground underneath him. They’re alone in laughter.

“Truth?” Harry closes his hand around Louis’ and doesn’t look him in the eye. “I don’t know why I got it. I don’t remember, I mean. I had a bad experience two years ago.”

Their fingers drag over each other’s tentatively and that means _Not too much. Go slow._ “What happened?” Louis whispers.

“I don’t know. Doctors said it’s called a fugue state. You just, like. Something happens and then you forget. Best case scenario you recover in a coupla hours and get your memories back.”

“That’s not what happened.”

“No.”

“You didn’t remember.”

“No. Justa few things. I dream about things.”

“Like what?”

“This woman that was my mom. I think she was my mom. She looked like one.”

“I’m sorry kid.” Louis blinks and Harry sees the wetness around his iris. The blue reminds him of a bonedeep cold. The kind of cold you don’t come back from.

“It’s okay.” Harry mashes his mouth onto Louis’ hand. “It’s okay.”

“Okay.”

Harry looks up at him. Angela always says Harry’s an open book and Harry has trouble understanding how a person could give themselves away in a lip bite.

But he sees the pins of Louis’ pupils and he understands it right away. He can tell there’s a sunless spot in there that Louis didn’t have when he first arrived. Maybe when you know someone, really really know them, it’s a changing thing. “So. Where’re you from?”

“I’m from southern I-L. Just the tip,” Louis says.

“I thought your accent was different.”

“Yeah. I try to keep up appearances with people I don’t know real well.”

“Nobody cares if you’re not from ‘round here. You don’t have to hide part of yourself.”

Louis' face turns down. He withdraws his hand from Harry’s and takes another sip of tea. “People are always hidin’ some part of themselves. We’re never just one person with anyone.”

“You really think that?”

“I think that. I also think you got lucky. Blank slate. Nothin’ to tie you down.”

“You don’t seem tied down,” Harry murmurs. “You’re the most free.”

“I love that.” Louis shines. “But that ain’t right. I’m tied down up here,” he pokes his forefinger into his temple. “I would take bleach to the brain if I could.” He seems to notice Harry’s cross for the first time. His fingers tap it. “I like this.”

“Thanks.”

“Where’d ya get it?”

“I showed up here with it. Think it was from my mom.” Harry blinks it back. “What you said. Is that why you’re passing through?”

“You mean I’m runnin’? No.” Louis looks out the window. “I mean, I’m always running.”

“How’d you end up in Topeka?”

Louis smiles at him. “Lookin’ for work.”

“What do you do?”

“I dabble,” Louis waves his hand in the air. “I carve wood. I build stuff. Can get a construction job easy but I like makin’ nicer shit. Like a wood rooster.” He grabs hold of a copper rooster on the counter and clucks.

Harry laughs and then Louis laughs but it stays in his mouth, not eager to be caught finding his own joke funny. He seems very young. If it weren’t for the clarity to his skin—the kind that comes from exiting puberty—Harry would think they’re the same age.

“I’d buy one from you.”

Louis folds his hands and leans his chin on top of them. Harry loves people with these kinds of hands. They know how to hold.

“I figured.” Louis stills with the next sentence. “I ain’t stayin’ in Topeka fer long, though.”

Harry lowers his eyes and picks at his finger. “Why not?”

“I just always gotta keep moving I guess. Fate’s a-pullin’ me places. I was gonna leave tonight actually, but—” He shrugs. “Fate’s like that. Cruel mistress.”

Louis traces a pattern on the countertop with his forefinger. There’s the sound of Harry picking at loose skin and skin on granite. Rain on the rooftop.

It’s died down since they’ve sat in the chairs. Their tea’s grown cold and this is life, Harry thinks. He considers making another.

“Do you believe in that stuff?” Harry asks.

“Fate?” Harry nods. “Yeah,” Louis looks to him. “Sometimes.”

“I believe in it.”

“What’s yer theory?”

Harry tips his head back. “I think we’re connected to everything by this really fine piece of twine and, like, it’s charged. Like a live wire.”

“Does it connect people?”

“Oh. Yeah.” Harry’s head shoots up. The room is hot and clammy with a grass smell. “It’s how you keep moving. I believe in fate stuff. I just have my own ideas about it.”

“I feel like it’s even smaller than that.” Louis sniffles and rubs under his nose. “I think we jus’ come from wanderin’ folk. You n’me.”

“How you know I’m a wanderer?” Harry squints at him, mock-perturbed.

Louis is unfazed. He casts Harry a pleased eye and grins all mischief and lightning. “I’m not wrong, am I?”

There are lots of lives Harry has daydreamed of living. He becomes a postman and moves to Seattle. He has a lot of plastic friendships and Jane is there.

Sometimes he’s in South Carolina and eats lots of fresh peaches. Sometimes he’s in Maine and he works at a coffeehouse. He complains about the rain and the rent.

He has to see these things this way. Separate from himself but still present. Harry knows it’s more likely he could inhabit any of those daydreams. The difference is that in any of those, he stays for longer than a few years. He builds a home.

Harry’s not so good at building homes.

“No,” he admits. This again seems to appease Louis. Harry supposes when you feel like an other there is a yellow feeling to finding another other.

“I think we’re the type that wanders onto the next big thing. You ain’t lookin’ where you’re going and suddenly it’s hellfire and brimstone outside and you’re on this doorstep starin’ at the prettiest pair of eyes—Well. C’est la vie.” Louis curls his lips into each other until they disappear. He looks very strange without a mouth.

Then Harry realizes what he said. He bristles.

“You saying I’m a big thing?”

“I know I’m not alone in thinkin’ that.” Louis runs his hand through his hair and it sticks up at the front. There’s a cowlick. Harry licks his thumb.

“You’re not alone in thinking that.” He presses the pad of his thumb down on the wisp of hair.

“This is fuckin’ crazy,” Louis says. But there’s nothing cautious about how he stands and walks in front of Harry’s chair. Harry’s knees open further to accommodate him into his space.

“I know.” Harry stares at the star. Then Louis’ eyes. Louis’ eyes are blue lightbulbs. Two little mercurial moons.

“What are you thinkin’ about,” Louis murmurs. He is close enough that Harry can smell the menthols and stale honeyed-tea on his breath.

“I try to describe people’s eyes in my head. So I can remember them.”

Louis grins. Eyes chrome and thin fly wings. “That your thing? ‘Fraid you’ll forget?”

“My thing? Yeah. Everyone’s got a thing, don’t they?”

“I got a thing for your eyes. Port-a-potty green.”

Harry laughs and the force knocks his forehead into Louis’ chest. Louis wraps his arms around Harry and it’s sugar everywhere.

“I was tryna be creative like you,” Louis says through a smile but Harry keeps laughing into his neck. Then Louis sways him back and forth and Harry could fall asleep in the inked arms with the ink black night and soft rain.

“It’s so strange,” Harry whispers. “You wandering to my doorstep.”

“It is. An’ you even opening the door.” Louis’ mouth turns into Harry’s neck but doesn’t kiss. “Written in the stars.”

“Must be.”

It’s quiet for a few moments. They breathe like very old lovers do. Like death is in the next room sleeping and it has to be so so quiet. Then Harry hears Louis say under his breath, “Harry. Hurrah.”

“Hm?”

“Hurrah. Nah. Huzzah.”

Harry lifts his head. Louis is fixed with a contemplative gaze set on the back wall of the kitchen. “What are you on about?”

“Hazza.” Louis looks at him. “You don’t have a nickname.”

“Not that I know of, anyways.”

“Hazza.”

“Is that English?”

“That’s your nickname,” Louis grins. “Yer welcome.”

Harry feels it in his throat. He says without thinking, “You really must have a star in your chest.”

Louis’ smile dims. He looks to Harry with contained curiosity. “How’s that, Hazza?”

“I dunno.” Harry smiles shyly. “I feel drawn to you. Like, a pull.”

“Maybe that’s that live wire.”

“Maybe it’s both.” Louis hums in agreement. He runs his hands up Harry’s sides and the tremor tears through him. He has to screw his eyes shut. Louis stops immediately.

When Harry opens his eyes Louis is far away. Harry’s far away too. There’s nothing between them to short circuit and no worry that it even would.

They fall into it much too slowly. It’s less about coming alive and more like a hospital room or long line.

Louis stubble scratches over Harry’s bottom lip. His hands have taken again to skimming across the skin of Harry’s abdomen. Harry can hear each sharp exhale when he presses harder into Louis’ mouth.

The smack of their wet lips sliding against each other tightens the pull between them. Harry’s knees open wider and Louis is everywhere but nowhere he needs him.

Harry pulls off dazed and flushed orange. His lips burn and Louis’ hands still touch him. This is a different kind of forgetting.

Louis butterflies his eyes apart and he looks like Harry looks. Hungry.

“We just met,” Harry breathes.

“I know.” Louis swallows. “Far as I know that don’t stop anyone at parties.”

“I don’t know if I can let this go in the morning,” Harry admits.

“Hazza,” Louis steels his jaw. “I can’t stay. You know that. I know that.”

“I don’t want to be a night for you.”

“That’s a lot to ask of someone you just met,” Louis swipes his thumb over Harry’s mouth. “Even if that someones are like you n’me.”

“Just tell me something.”

“Okay.”

“You won’t forget me.”

Louis’ eyelids are glassy and very soft. He’s flushed from Harry’s mouth and the flush spreads the more Harry rubs his fingers into Louis’ hips. “I’m not gonna forget you.”

Harry drags his lips against Louis’ neck. Too tender for a kiss. “Promise?”

The promise was made with a mouth. Louis turned into him somewhat impatient and overwhelmed. Harry likes to talk but in that moment felt he would keep quiet forever if each word was a kiss and each sentence was carved out with a tongue.

They take their time in it.

It’s true about the fugue. Sometimes Harry wakes up with a new piece of his old self but it doesn’t bring him back to an old life. It’s more like living a life while he sleeps which a lot of people do just by dreaming dreams and not odd white-fence memories.

It’s why experiences like this make him lucid. It feels like a drowning dream.

Louis’ fingers aren’t low enough. Harry needs them to press through him. He wants Louis inside and inside for hours.

He takes Louis’ hand and the rain slaps in wet tongues against the walls. They tread breathless and uneasy down the hallway, past the tea mugs and towels and pair of wet clothes left alone on the floor. Jane doesn’t even lift her head.

 

 

 

★

 

 

 

Harry never learned how to kiss quietly.

He knows how other men have wanted him to fuck and how he’s supposed to move—like that or fuck—like that. At the right time. Press deeper. It’s been about performances before this.

Blowjobs in the 7-11 parking lots and club bathroom quick fucks. Quick quick painless and swallow it.

Then Louis touches.

They’re standing naked in front of each other in the blue room. There is no rain. It waits for them to catch up.

Louis touches Harry’s gold cross, cold against his chest. Then he lets it fall back.

And Louis collapses carefully into him again, the stars in his eyes folding in on themselves. They kiss briefly with both of their eyes open. To see it. It would seem too private for anyone else.

Then he closes his eyes and the rain comes down in a sudden shifting, a giant hand dipping into a sack of salt.

Louis meets his tongue where Harry parts his mouth. His adoring fingers hide in Louis’ hair. They quiet back into raw presses of lips and stop kissing to look at each other again and catalog the changes.

Harry’s mouth turns candy-apple but Louis’ mouth stays pink. Louis bites more than he thinks and turns Harry’s bottom lip swollen like a bee sting. Louis stays soft-looking and Harry stays ruined in the hands of the boy with the starry eyes.

Harry blinks. “Have you done this before?”

“Yeah.”

“I haven’t had anyone do it to me.”

“Okay.” Louis wets his lips.

“Promise you’ll go slow.”

“I’ll do anythin’ you want. Anything. Just say the word.”

“Okay.”

“You sure?” Louis’ fingers in his hair like a mother’s.

“Yes. Touch me. Please.”

Louis grins. “Can do.”

 

 

 

★

 

 

 

He can feel the come leaking out between his thighs. It’s messy warm. Louis is kissing him again, his fingers sliding into his slick inside. Harry whimpers against his mouth, “Louis.”

“God, you’re fuckin’ filthy.” Louis sits up between Harry’s legs. His cock twitches.

There are green-blue bite marks all over his chest all from Harry’s mouth all Harry’s. He watches Louis line up to him again and his hand reaches out to give Louis’ cock a few tugs.

Harry focuses on the bruises.

When the body enters the first process of decay there’s no oxygen left in the blood. The body discolors into blues, the fingernails and fingertips dusted by sulfur. Blowflies lay eggs and the organs run into each other like egg yolk.

He read once that sometimes maggots can get inside a host and feed off of it while it’s still alive.

In the Book of Mark, Jesus cast a demon out of a man at Gerasenes. The demon was sent into the bodies of pigs. Harry knows he’s supposed to fight against the need to possess.

Louis brushes the tip of his cock against Harry’s hole. He looks at their anatomy and the champagne glean of early dawn that’s just arrived. There was plenty to see in the dark. Now it’s morning and he pushes the head in. Pulls back out.

Two clouds collide over Kansas and make a thunderstorm and make a tornado and take forty-three people with them.

Harry whines low in his throat. He wants to possess. He wants to be inside and wants Louis inside at the same time. So he digs his thumbnail into his skin until Louis is barely making a sound. When he pulls it away he’s broke through the first layer and he meets Louis’ eyes in dewey embarrassment.

But Louis is the boy that greeted him at the door again. Black eye and wolfish. Harry scrambles to shove his fingers into Louis’ mouth and Louis pushes himself inside so fast there is only a moan like a bow string and the squelch of where skin meets and then nothing.

They are silent inside each other. They are mosquitoes encased in amber.

 

 

 

★

 

 

 

Early morning brings birds.

Harry can tell it’s clear outside. There are blue birds that sing on days that are nice like this and he can hear them now.

Louis lies across from him on the bed. Their legs tucked together. The light between them too precious to survive past the bed.

That mischievous glint creeps around inside Louis’ eyes. Harry thinks passively that if Louis was in a drug-induced homicide and badly disfigured and they needed someone to identify the body that he could do it.

It seems an hour passes this way.The sun sits gently on top of them and their hands that keep touching. He has work in a few hours.

“Do you think you could identify my body?”

Louis’ hand is light at his thigh. His fingers tease further closeness and then abandon. Harry chases the sensation with his hips.

“Don’t go dyin’ on me, Haz.”

“I won’t.” Harry slides his big hand onto Louis’ neck. “But could you do it? Would you know me?”

“Hm.” Louis tilts his mouth up at the corner. He pushes Harry down by the shoulders and sits on his hips. He is a heavy god on top of him, a gilded troublemaker. He licks at Harry’s left nipple and sucks on it briefly.

He pauses. “I’d know that fer some reason, the left is more sensitive than the right.”

“Really?” Harry never noticed.

“Yeah.” Louis worms his hand down to scratch through the patch of hair at Harry’s navel. “I know that makes you shiver.” It does.

“If I’m dead,” Harry rasps, “I won’t do any of that.”

“Yer tattoos are a dead give away. Pardon the pun.”

“Cop out.” Harry smirks.

Louis quirks an eyebrow. “I see what’s goin’ on here. You just want me to tell you that yer special.”

“You’re not wrong.”

They grin at each other. Louis’ hands rest flat on his chest. They move up and down slowly. “You’ve got these two weird-lookin’ birthmarks.”

“Be nice.”

“I didn’t finish.” He stops his hands. “I ain’t never seen a mouth like yours.”

“What’s it look like?”

“Raspberries. It’s like you ate a lot of raspberries real fast. You taste like it too.” Louis ducks in for a quick kiss. He runs his tongue inside to grab at any trace of Harry.

“You taste bitter.” Harry breathes out through his nose. Louis shifts against him and the movement spikes a white heat in his stomach.

“Bitter like what?”

“Menthols. Rainwater.”

“Is it bad?”

“No.” Harry sits up and pulls their mouths together. He says against Louis’ lips, “I like cigarettes. I jus’ don’t have enough money to keep a habit.”

“I like when I go to bed an’ I can smell it on my clothes.”

“I like that, too.”

Harry kneads a handful of Louis’ skin. He watches it sink out from under his fingertips and fall into place. It unsettles him that skin goes back to normal like that. His thumb presses down on a bruise Harry sucked into his hip. Louis hisses. “Owch.”

“I wish it would stay.”

“The bruise?”

Harry swallows. “Yeah.”

“There’s another one,” Louis whispers. He slides off Harry’s hips and again they lie tangled and looking at each other on the bed.

“On your neck?”

“Yes.”

“There’s quite a few.” Harry reaches up and touches each of them on Louis’ chest that he noticed before. _Hello. Hello._

Louis is still. “There’s one more.”

This elicits a laugh from Harry. He lets his hand fall between Louis’ legs but Louis shakes his head. “It’s somewhere on the inside.”

“Where?”

“I dunno.” Louis gives a vague gesture, like a shrug. “I feel it though.”

“From my hands?”

“Yeah.”

“It might be your star.”

“No.” Louis shakes his head. “That feels different. Like being lost. Like havin’ no home.”

“What do I feel like?”

Louis so soft. “Like havin’ a home.”

Harry looks at the boy with the star at his eye. He closes his eyelids and sees their history. Theirs is the kind they’d pass on down for centuries. The storm and their tangled legs and this blue morning.

“Louis.”

“Hm?” Leg hair catching static on the sheets.

“Have you got a history?”

“Like, what? A family?”

“I guess.”

“Yeah. I got a family.”

“Where are they?”

“Illinois.”

“Where’s your family from?”

“Dunno. Somewhere in England maybe. Long long long time ago.” Harry likes England. He’s never been but he’s read about it. Ray told him they’re funny kind of people and Harry appreciates anyone that’s funny.

“You believe in parallel universes?”

Louis turns over on him. He’s all-fours above, skin salt and butter where Harry kisses. “You’ve got some good ideas in that head of yers.”

“Well,” Harry smiles, “do you?”

“Yeah. I do. I bet right now there’s two boys in England jus’ like us.”

“In a parallel England.”

“Yeah.” His skinny body bends down to press against Harry’s. He wonders how many times they could do this. Harry’s questions and Louis refracting away and coming back again. In another parallel universe this is what they do forever.

“What do you think we do for fun?” Harry traces a thumb pad over Louis’ eyebrow.

“We’re kings,” Louis murmurs. He scratches lightly at Harry’s scalp. “We eat fried chicken wings and go for long lazy walks in tulip gardens.”

“Kings don’t eat fried chicken.”

“They do this time.”

“Do we hold hands?”

“We never ever stop holdin’ hands.”

Harry laughs. “Not even to use the bathroom.”

“Nope. Not even then.”

“We could be Shelley and Keats.”

“Okay.” Louis kisses him once on the mouth, his fingers tied up in Harry’s gold chain. “I’ll be Shelley.”

“No,” Harry shakes his head. “I’m Shelley.”

Louis smiles. “You gonna write an elegy fer me?”

“I already have.” Harry points to his head and takes Louis’ words for his own. “It’s somewhere on the inside.”

It’s a balm for the wound that will come with the afternoon. Harry can see through their gash straight to the fat and muscle.

They get each other off one more time. Louis lets himself be fucked on top of Harry’s cock slow, very very slow. Harry doesn’t know if he wants to look at Louis’ eyes or where his cock disappears inside. When his gaze slips down Louis jerks his head back up with a hand at the back of his neck and this means _Mine. Mine. Mine. Mine. Mine._

Harry watches him come apart. _Yours. Yours. Yours. Yours. Yours._

There are still things too delicate to say out loud. So he fucks the rest of it into him. Louis bites and they knock teeth, their faces screwed up and ugly with it. He can taste blood in his mouth and he can see it on Louis’ lips. He doesn’t know whose it is.

Louis kisses him and Harry comes for a lifetime. Louis follows with a noise high in his throat. He can almost hear the starlings, the first silver whine of another rainshower.

And he thinks, how rare to be touched by someone that makes you feel worth knowing, even for a night.

He slips out of Louis and sees blood streaks on his stomach. His finger pushes through one of them and Louis watches it with rapture. They lie dozing until Harry’s heart stops its tremors. There isn’t enough time left and he can feel the tensing of Louis’ body even as he stays sprawled out next to him. Someone has to provide an out.

He doesn’t want to say it so he yawns through it instead. “I gotta work today.”

“Okay. Let’s nap.” Louis is far away.

“Promise if you go you’ll wake me.”

“Okay.”

“Promise you’ll come back.” Louis mumbles nonsense into his neck.

Thin strips of light fall over their feet. Harry itches against where the cum has streaked over his stomach. Louis’ fingers find his and they intertwine.

Harry waits until he’s asleep to ask again.

 

 

 

★

 

 

 

The bed is empty.

Harry should lie back in the young brown day and stay there. Get an extra few minutes of shut-eye before his shift with Addy.

He doesn’t.

His feet carry him past the towels and outside his front door. Jane pushes past his heels and into the day he was so sure was blue and it is.

The grass is a green traffic light. There’s no trace of Louis anywhere. Not that there would be but Harry is full of high hopes and this sometimes makes it difficult to expect a different outcome.

He can still feel Louis inside him. It’s not an unpleasant kind of possession. But this is the only feeling that sustains. As far as he knows that might not even be real. He could’ve gone to bed early and got himself off and not remembered it. He could’ve been lucid all night.

It’s strange to see the setting so unaffected by last night’s storm. There should be a tree knocked down or some power lines. Evidence that the storm brought Louis into his home on a wind and sent it all out of place.

Jane rolls around in the front yard. Nothing has changed.

When he turns to go back inside, he sees it.

There is a star carved at the corner of the door’s wood panelling. Harry follows it with his fingers. He closes his eyes and imagines the morning. Louis sneaks out of bed without waking him. He pads down the hall and retrieves his clothes from the floor and dresses. Jane listens to him when he presses a forefinger to his lips.

All of the energy in the universe bent to Louis’ will and his legs that take him where he needs to go.

Then in the sunlight, tongue between his teeth, he fishes out a pocketknife. His dad gave him this pocketknife. He carves a star in the blue door which could mean  _Mine_ but it might mean _I promise I’ll come back. I’m coming back._

Harry smiles. He almost imagines the next part where Louis does come back. But it’s too soon.

The door shuts behind the smiling loved boy.

 

 

 

★

 

 

 

When Harry walks behind the counter, apron tied tight across his chest, he immediately aims for causal conversation. “How did the dance go last night?”

He of course hopes for a regular answer. Though he knows what’s coming, Angela’s cartoonish whistle is still shrill and unexpected. Harry startles in the fix of her purpled grape eyes. “Child, what in the Lord’s name happened to you? Te metiste en una pelea? Huh?”

Harry waves off her comment. “Here I thought I’d get away with it.” He looks at her. She’s the only one who can understand this story. “A boy showed up to my door last night.”

Her dark brow furrows and casts shadows over her eyes. “Was he caught out in the storm?”

“Yeah. But not car trouble. He was barefoot.” Angela hums. “And he told me he was s’posed to leave last night.”

“But he didn’t.”

“No, he didn’t.”

Angela clucks her tongue and goes about starting a pancake batter. “Why don’t you tell me what I need to know. So I can tell you,” she cracks an egg, “what you need to know.”

“Okay,” he hops up on the counter, tone is frantic. “I’ve never in my life connected with anyone this instantly.”

“Lotsa connections in this world are instant, boy. Don’t mean nothin’ after a day.” She washes her hands in the sink.

Harry bangs the back of his shoes against the shelving unit. “You know me. I don’t do this.”

After her hands are dry, Angela takes a good look at him. It changes something in her demeanor. “What’s this boy of yours look like?”

“Skinny. Tattooed. He’s got a star tattoo by his right eye.” Harry gestures to its place on his own skin. “And blue eyes.”

“So,” Angela approaches him. “Where is he now?”

“I don’t know.” Harry looks at the ground. “He couldn’t stay. But he—” Harry cuts her off before she can doubt, “—he carved a star in my door.”

She smirks. “Smart boy.”

“I think it was so he could find his way back to me. To come back.”

“I think anything’s possible, baby.” Angela tucks a strand of hair behind his ear. “But right now that boy’s gone. So you gotta act like he’s gone. No mopin’ or passin’ other chances just ‘cause they’re not him.”

Harry almost says okay. Then he looks at her. “There was nothing that would’ve kept you from holdin’ out on Ray, and you know it.”

“This is different, Harry. Ray was a sure thing.”

“But you didn’t know that. Just like I don’t know that.”

Her hands come up to frame his face. He can’t hide from her eyes and when they get like this it unlocks something very small in Harry. She smiles. “You never woulda fought me this hard,” she whispers, “if it was nothing. Alright.” Her hands drop. “I believe you.”

Harry’s fingers reach out for her but she’s already across the space back to preparing batter. “You believe me?”

“Ain’t that what I said?”

There’s another storm heading in for the day. The diner moans beneath its eager hands. Harry looks out the window and sees the pea-green tint to the clouds. He’ll fall asleep tonight on the couch with Jane in his arms.

Bowls clink together and Harry comes back to his body. When he exhales, Angela eyes him with a question. It’s easy to answer.

“I’m gonna wait for him.”

It’s not the answer she wanted. “Oh, baby,” Angela shakes her head. “What if it’s a year? What if it’s five years?”

“It’s worth it.”

“You sure?”

No.

But for Harry this is a small waiting.

Louis was right about him, about their being wanderers. Even if Louis comes back to Topeka and Harry’s up and gone by then, there’s still hope for another state-another time-another night. They’re not supposed to be together right now.

Right now doesn’t mean always.

With the bite marks still fresh, there’s little else to stop Harry from setting his heels in the dirt. He knows it’ll be different when the neck is back to its milk white and the teeth marks can’t convince him he was touched.

That’s what the star’s for.

Harry looks at Angela and nods once, final. “I’m sure.”

 

 

 

★

 

 

 

It’s been a week since Louis left.

Three severe storms have passed through.

Harry shares a tobacco-blunt with Addy on the walk home after work. Addy’s from Harlem in New York City and there’s no real reason she needed to move to Topeka. She jokes it’s because she wanted to see if tumbleweeds were real and not just dramatic devices of Old Westerns. Harry thinks she has a history she doesn’t want to have anymore.

He feels lucky to have her living a little close by. She’s about another two miles out from the center of the city and Harry likes her because she never complains about walking.

“Angie says you got yourself a man.” Addy kicks at a stone. “How come you never tell me anything?”

He throws an arm around her, the smoke from her pull passing in front of his face. “I was gonna. Angela gave me a hard time. I’m still recovering.”

“You’re a baby, Curly.” Addy shrugs him off and pads her lip ring lightly with her fingers.

“I know.”

“Ah, pareces _triste_.” She gives him the blunt and crosses her arms. “Just tell me what’s up.”

It stays comfortable between his first two fingers. “I did meet someone.”

“And?”

Harry holds onto his inhale. Smoke billows out of his mouth. “Now he’s gone.”

It’s June. The acid-tinged dragonflies mount each other and cicadas come in the morning. When he takes Jane for walks she eats them as long as they’re already dead.

People are nice in the summer. Harry looks out over the miles of wheatgrass and tomato plants as they walk and puts Louis beside each scene.

Addy’s mouth twists. “That was fast. He didn’t leave no number?”

“He doesn’t live anywhere.” She takes the blunt back.

“Why didn’t you give him yours?”

Harry rubs under his nose. “You’re gonna call me stupid.”

“Probably.”

He looks at her. “I thought we were something big.”

They both stop walking. “Like what?”

“Like,” Harry licks the word out. “Iconoclasts.”

Addy snorts. “Yeah? Of what?”

“Everything.” Harry extends both of his hands out and watches her watch him with the white-grape smell between them. “That’s how it feels. Like you’re ready to burn the whole world down if that’s what it takes.”

“I ain’t never felt that way.”

“I don’t care if anyone believes me.” Harry drags his shoes through the dust of the road. “I still don’t know sometimes if it was real. The star’s the only proof.”

She turns from him. “But you gonna just keep hopin’ it was?” Her braids knock together as she continues walking just in front of him. They end at her lower back.

“I thought that if someone’s in charge up there,” Harry catches up beside her, “I thought. They’re not gonna let this one go.”

“It’s not like you.”

“I know.”

“If _you_ woulda acted like you were in charge maybe some shit woulda got done.”

“He would’ve gone either way.”

Addy glowers at him, lips full and pressed together. “Did you tell him how you feel?”

“Yeah.”

For Addy, this would’ve solved everything. She never wastes a moment and this is why whatever she sets her teeth into, she gets. Harry’s not like that.

“Oh,” she exhales.

“Yeah.”

Their walk ends in silence and Harry knows it’s because Addy is thinking. She retreats far into herself and her nose pinches. He’s kept count. It’s pinched four times.

They stop in front of Harry’s house.

When she turns to regard him, Addy’s eyes are kind and white cherries. “What will you do,” she says, “if he don’t come back?”

Harry looks at the front door. “I’ll write it down.”

 

 

 

★

 

 

 

Harry notices two things.

There are a lot of dead men in Michigan named Louis.

There are also a lot of dead men from Illinois named Louis.

It’s July and Harry is in the local library looking at obituaries. He’s not sure why he thought it would be a good idea because he doesn’t know how many siblings Louis has or when he was born or who he’d be remembered by.

And that’s not fair, because if Louis died he’d be remembered by Harry.

There’s some misplaced flare of anger in his throat. The feeling that should have followed Louis’ skinny fingers out the door but didn’t. Instead he’s angry that Louis could be dead and Harry wouldn’t even make it to the funeral.

Since that night Harry has been eaten away at. Love is a maggot that’s made a nest of his skin and it makes him itch at night. The more time passes, the less he remembers.

It’s bad enough with the fugue he always wakes up every other week with a part of himself he no longer knows how to want.

There were never any missing person reports that looked like him. For all Harry knows he’s either spent his life alone or he’s unwanted, and after a heavy dream he never quite knows which is worse to assume is his case.

Instinctively Harry reaches for the star tattoo in the crook of his elbow. He chews on his bottom lip and opens a cut there that won’t heal because he won’t let it.

Everyone at the diner knows what the tattoo is about but he tells a different story to all the customers. In this way the story stays his own until he’s ready to tell it.

He clicks out of the obituaries. A fragment of Sylvia Plath worms its way into his ears.

 

_I should have loved a thunderbird instead;_

_At least when spring comes they roar back again._

_I shut my eyes and all the world drops dead._

_(I think I made you up inside my head.)_

 

He turns off the computer.

 

 

 

★

 

 

 _Next time,_ Harry thinks, _when he goes, I’m going with him._

 

 

★

 

 

 

September is just yellow dust and leaflets.

It’s when Ray starts making pumpkin pancakes as a diner special. It’s when Angela takes a vacation to visit her family in Puerto Rico. Couples make commitments and storms stop their roughened red hands from staining the landscape and his neighbors make a surplus of blueberry pies.

It’s when Harry knows Louis isn’t coming back.

Something else comes instead.

Harry closes early on sunday, September fourth. There’s nothing special about the date at the time except for when he makes it home. For the first few months of summer Harry always touched the star. The hope was that Louis could feel it and would know Harry didn’t forget.

He goes to unlock the front door and doesn’t reach up. So he’s halfway through the frame before he notices another smaller star beneath it.

His heart is a black hollow. It falls to his feet.

“Louis?” Harry calls inside the house. No answer. He whirls around with keys still in the door and re-examines the front yard for anything out of place.

It feels cheap. He plays with his cross and stays very still and wills something to happen.

Jane’s claws tap against the floor as she approaches. She barks a warm hello and Harry tells himself what he’s told himself for the past five months.

_That boy’s gone. So you gotta act like he’s gone._

“Hi.” Harry smiles at Jane. “Let’s get you fed, okay?”

 

 

 

★

 

 

 

December twenty-fourth Harry walks home in the middle of a snowstorm.

Addy and her boyfriend Muggs treated him to a few drinks after their late shift. Now he’s drunk and apple-cheeked and his bag is full of new books from his diner family.

They offered to drive him but Harry wanted the snow. Its angel soft and cold. He is very cold and mucus trails down his top lip. He wipes it on his coat sleeve but his nose still runs.

When he gets to his street he can see the sugar plum smear of his house’s Christmas lights. It’s faint in the fog of thick snow but it’s there. He watches his feet disappear in the inches of snowfall and is thankful for good boots.

The thing is, Topeka doesn’t usually see a lot of snow. Twelve inches annually if they’re lucky. But this doesn’t cross his mind as he nears closer to his house.

Winter is the one time of year Harry doesn’t worry while he fiddles for keys. People don’t stand waiting in snowstorms to break into houses.

Fate would have it, as she always has it, that his door is open when he walks up.

Harry doesn’t know what to do.

He’s covered in spit and snot and if someone is inside his house maybe he can distract them enough so Jane could escape. It’s in favor of her survival that he places a childlike hand on the wood and pushes it open.

It’s dark inside. Harry’s stomach trembles. There is a small glow coming from the kitchen. He is two seconds from screaming Jane’s name when he hears her familiar nails rap on the floortile.

She comes into view a moment later. Harry is paralyzed and watches her walk to him. Her head is bowed in a blue silence and he doesn’t understand. Then it seems it might be guilt—that it might mean _Someone was here I’m ok but I didn’t eat them or anything I’m sorry._

He removes his leather glove and pets her head with a blotted hand. “Hi.”

Jane looks up at him. “It’s okay,” he tells her. He looks behind him. The flatland like glassware and Harry spiked cider-warm in his coat.

There is nothing to do now but go inside. Jane disappears into the darkness.

The door shuts quietly. Snow falls in chunks off the toes of his boot. Suddenly bold, he stomps both feet down on the welcome mat and is met by the sound of ceramic shattering in the kitchen.

Harry’s eyes widen, his mouth open like a hooked fish. His legs are without feeling but they pull him further through his house until he can’t see his own hands.

The yellow light glosses over everything so that when Harry is close enough to hear the mutterings, he pretends he is walking through a hallucination of an old memory. This is his mother cleaning up a tea mug off the floor. The voice is soft and high for her.

His legs give out right away.

Louis is bent over on the floor and removing a shard of glass from his foot. He is looking at Harry with the heaviest apology and blood covers his hands.

He is everything Harry has dreamt of for the past eight months. He’s more.

“Sorry,” Louis murmurs. “I broke yer favorite one.”

“You broke into my house.” Harry hears himself say.

He lowers his eyes. “Yeah.”

“You’re here.”

“I’m here.”

“You came back.”

Louis pulls the glass out. “I came back.” It makes a soft clink where Louis sets it down on the white tile. There’s a lot of blood for such an innocent wound.

They stare at each other. The miles have worked them over. Harry shivers against the wall until he finally removes his coat. It shuffles to the ground at his right. After that he can breathe better.

“You look different.” He’s not sure what to say.

“You don’t.” Louis is the first to smile. “Still a little lamb.”

Not yet. “Where did you go?”

“Michigan.” Louis scoots closer. His jean cuffs drag through the blood. “I went to the water.”

“You found work.”

“I found work. I bought a place. Hazza,” Louis is close to him. “I got money.”

Harry stares past Louis’ bleeding foot at the pair of trainers and bundled-up socks next to him. It colors him black. “You have shoes.”

Louis nods frantically. “Yeah, Haz, I—I got shoes.”

“I’m glad.”

“Whole time I was gone,” Louis is tear-stained, “I thought about what you said ‘bout history.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah.” Louis is close enough to see the odd brown dot in his iris. He is still golden. He is still the wolf in the dark. “I realized somethin.”

Harry bites his lip. “What was that.”

“I wanna make my own history.” Louis exhales. His eyes shake from looking at Harry in close proximity. “I want you to make a history with me.”

It’s a satisfying ending for the mythology, Harry thinks. Their storm was followed by many other storms. Louis had his storms and Harry had his and Louis bore a thousand white scars on his outside to match Harry’s inside.

Harry smiles. “I wrote you an elegy.”

“You didn’t forget about me.”

In a few days maybe, he’ll set the drafts he’s written on fire and they can roll around in the ash like wolves. He has it memorized anyways.

“No. You came back.”

“I came back.”

The electrical wire pulses in white sparks between them. It passes something like a trembling before Louis climbs into Harry’s lap and Harry is biting the soft spot of his neck. Harry can feel the wet blood on Louis’ hands where they card through his hair.

He’s lighter than in his dreams, than he remembers. Louis has shucked off his history like a t-shirt and now he’s free like Harry is free.

Louis licks into his mouth with blood and honey.

The kiss crackles and they separate in a single laughter.

Before he can forget, Harry announces. “I’m going with you this time.”

“Okay,” Louis whispers.

“Okay.”

He fans his eyelashes against Harry’s eyelashes. _Kiss kiss._ They stand and Harry bandages Louis’ busted heel. Then they walk to the bedroom together, their shadows the same in the white house.

 

 

 

★

 

 

 

Mouth after mouth comes slow as honey. In the hours it takes to re-learn Louis’ body, he finds scars in the shape of stars in odd places. He traces the one on his neck with his tongue and Louis cries. He doesn’t say anything so Harry doesn’t ask.

Their faces are wet with spit. It’s not kissing anymore. It’s just a way to keep warm, Harry pressed on top of him like a fat tongue. His fingers reach down to circle Louis’ rim and Louis tightens.

“I never stopped thinking about you,” Harry whispers. Louis bites his bottom lip. “I tried to stop. I told myself you weren’t coming back.”

Louis throws his head to the side. “I told myself I wasn’t comin’ back. I said it a million times.”

Harry doesn’t need to hear a why. He wants Louis to go slack in his arms again the way he did when they still seemed like boys. When they were breakable in a blue light. So he kisses around the rim of Louis’ hole and watches the muscles in Louis’ stomach contract.

“Hazza,” Louis says through teeth. “Have you…”

“Yeah.”

“Not with me.” His hand curls tight to hurt in Harry’s hair.

“No,” Harry agrees.

After Louis, a want had been seeded inside Harry.

It festered. He thought it would break as a fever breaks but when Louis took too long to drag his heels back down the road Harry broke instead.

There were boys in Kansas that wanted in the same ways. In November he found himself fingering one in the altar boys’ rooms at the back of the church. It was something he thought Louis might do even though they hadn’t shared stories like that. Parts of him didn’t want to know what he’d done. He didn’t care about who had him before Harry had him.

Louis pulls at his hair again. There’s no need for that, Harry thinks.

Absent, Harry reaches for Louis’ hand and presses his fingers to the crook of his elbow where the tattoo is still brilliant and black. _Yours._ It pales the spot beneath Louis’ eyes until they’re blue and until his lip trembles. He nods. _Mine._

Harry sinks his top teeth into the center of his tongue to gather saliva. Then he pushes the tip against Louis’ hole and coats it in thick wet licks. Louis lets out a noise that makes Harry think of machinery malfunctioning. His skin is heady and unclean.

Harry laps a few times over the entrance. Then he sucks for a moment while he repositions Louis’ thighs on his shoulders and walks himself further up the bed. When he pries his lips away, he catches Louis with his eyes closed.

His mouth is open and pink. It was too cold to smell like anything but skin and Louis’ come where it has dried on his chest and where it dots the tip of his cock.

That was another thing Harry tried to forget. The feel of Louis in his throat.

It’s too much to look at him with his eyes closed and eyelashes black wires. Harry swallows him sudden and it explodes inside Louis’ chest. Harry watches his back arch up, collarbone stretched against skin.

The star inside of him eases back onto the bed. His cock nudges the soft of Harry’s throat bit by bit until Harry can taste the salted hotness of him. He pulls off and continues with his hand. “Did you think of me when you were gone?”

Louis buries his nose in the crook of his elbow.

Harry bursts forward and grabs onto his jaw with a free hand. The other still working Louis over, slow and tight-fisted. “Tell me,” he noses along the skin. “Tell me everything.”

“Harry,” Louis swallows. “I can’t think when yer—God. Fuck.”

“I’m gonna fuck you,” Harry promises. “I’m gonna—”

“I need you to, Haz,” his cock slides against Harry’s stomach. “I need you to fuck me.”

He is pink-eyed and flushed. Harry decides to pretend he’s in a dream. Their stare doesn’t waver when Harry moves away and his fingers trail like ice down the length of Louis’ body. The cap clicks open against his thumbnail. He would laugh at the sound of the lube squeezed out but this is a different world.

Louis breathes out a ragged want and Harry wants to suck at it, wants to say _I know._

His fingers are glossed and cold where they work Louis open. He can take more than a finger on the first go but this isn’t meant to be remembered anymore. Harry is thrilled by the prospect that sex will become mundane in its frequency, that he will have his fingers inside Louis more times than tonight.

That there will be more tea mugs and different front yards for Jane to run in.

“Okay?” Harry breathes, transfixed as he presses his forefinger inside along with the middle. He can feel Louis tighten around him when he parts his fingers, curls them. Louis has not stopped looking at him. They have not stopped looking at each other.

“Yes. Yes,” Louis grinds his hips onto Harry, his face red and wild.

“I wish you could see yourself,” Harry murmurs.

“What do my—fuck. What do my eyes look like?”

Harry adds a third finger and curls the whine from Louis’ throat. Louis’ mouth drops open and his eyes. “Like snow in the early morning. Like smoke.” He removes his fingers and Louis chases him all the way out.

“Hazza,” Louis slurs, half-lidded.

Harry's cock is hot, solid in his own hands. He waits until he’s completely slick before he drags the rest of the wetness around Louis’ hole. “Tell me,” Harry reminds him. Then he pushes in.

Louis’ cock blurts out a small drop of precome. An “ah” is dragged out on the length of Harry’s cock and there is that single pause where their hips are pressed together where everything heavy drops away.

“I dreamt,” Louis whispers.

“Of what.” Harry is wide-eyed.

“This.” His hands splay out on either side of Harry’s hips. He grinds up into him and Harry pulls out, almost all the way, until he hears Louis say very small, “Of us at the beach sun-bathin’.”

“Louis,” he moans. Then the want is a snake in his gut and he slams into Louis harder than he thought he wanted.

“Fuck!” Louis knocks his head back against the bed.

He’s still skinnier than Harry by far but not in a way that worries him anymore. His chest littered with white scarred stars. Harry thinks of each night he dreamt about Louis and wondered if that’s where he’d been all this time.

They move in a tight shuddering, Harry rolling his hips into Louis again and it’s all copper and sweet milk, the taste that builds in his mouth when they kiss. His desperate hand jerks Louis off quick and he’s so wet from Harry’s mouth and his own come.

It takes nothing before they are pressed skin-skin with no space between and the firecracker sets off at the bottom of Harry’s spine.

Harry removes his hand and lets Louis fuck up against his abdomen. “Fuck, I—” he bites down onto Louis’ shoulder, hips slowing as he fucks through his orgasm.

“Baby,” Louis whines, cock spurting onto Harry’s stomach. They breathe into each other’s necks, Harry still inside until he softens. He shifts out of Louis gentle and feather light.

No longer eager to be dirty, Harry draws them a hot bath that smells like rose petal. He settles into it first, the water stinging when it laps against his thighs and his chest. Louis creeps in after him, hands and neck delicate in the pale night.

He washes them down with a bar of soap. When he washes the long length of Louis’ arm, held out for him, he feels Louis drop his head onto Harry’s shoulder, his eyes on his profile.

After the arm is rinsed, Harry meets Louis’ gaze. “Hi.”

“Hi. Sorry fer starin’.”

“Don’t be.”

“I was thinkin’ about something.”

Harry places the soap at the side of the tub and winds his arm around Louis’ waist. He mumbles into Louis’ hair. “Wanna tell me?”

“Yeah. Before I went up north,” Louis pauses. “I spent some time in New Orleans.”

“How was it?”

“Crazy.” Louis intertwines his fingers with Harry’s. He swallows and it’s loud in the room. “But you know they—they got this phrase for love at first sight. In French.”

It hits Harry dumb and cold. The water has grown tepid. “Oh.”

“Coup de foudre.” Harry can feel his heart slam against Louis’ back, can feel Louis’ heart slam in return. “Means bolt of lightnin’.”

They stay silent. It thrums inside them, the live wire, the dead star. There is no escaping the ridiculousness of that phrase, how it splays itself over them and sticks like august heat.

Love as a lightning strike is easy. Love that lasts is another thing, and it doesn’t scare him.

After the water runs a chill up Harry’s back, he feels Louis do the same in response.

Harry nudges him with his nose. “Let’s get dry. M’cold.”

“Oh, baby.” Louis kisses him. “Stay here. I’ll get us a towel.”

They wrap each other up in the big white towels, the same ones as before. They fold new cream sheets over their heads and play phantoms.

Harry boo’s in the shell of Louis’ ear and guides him back to bed by his hips. Louis tells him ghost stories until ghost stories become knock-knock jokes and they shake the bedframe with young laughter.

Just before sleep, Harry murmurs, “What do you think our parallel lives are doing now?”

Louis grins. “This,” he sighs. He’s happy.

“All of them?”

“All of them,” Louis promises. “If not really, then in their heads they are.”

It’s a gold grandiosity. He pictures the kings across from each other at dinner only able to gaze and fantasize about what he and Louis get to do right now.

“So we’re the lucky ones.”

“Yes.” Louis whispers. “We are.”

Harry watches Louis ease into sleep and smiles at the warm-loved boy beneath him. He lets himself look outside the window for what could be another hour, the tufts of snow outside building up in layers. The night is always brighter in the winter.

He thinks about the new history he’ll make.

It won’t start with Louis. It’ll start on Angela’s doorstep. His adolescence will be the two years he spent in Topeka removing people from the rubble of their own houses and planting flowers in gardens. The memories well up in the thick of his throat but then they pass over as everything does.

Harry tries to imagine what else snow could be besides little atmosphere flakes. He wonders about snow as angel tears that crystallize when they hit the atmosphere or maybe one of the Gods’ dandruff is being scratched off.

Then his eyelids slide shut and he dreams of a long beach and a long-toothed boy with eyelashes fine as cable wires and pupils that strike like lightning.

It snows until morning, where they wake in a lily-white light. Their faces are open, mouths sour from sleep but still needing the warmth.

Their bodies turned towards each other in small half-moons.

Love walks in silence around the room.


End file.
